Finally caught this tonight... why the negativity; it was utterly AWESOME. I really enjoyed this... just approach it with an open mind and no baggage from it's forerunners, and it's a seriously enjoyable movie. Far better than I had been expecting.

really struggle to understand how can anyone who has watched more than, say, 5 films in his or her life like this sorry excuse of a film? Apart from walking holding hands towards the sunset, I can't think of a single Hollywood cliche this film didn't tick off at least once. At the same time, I find it impossible to think of a single original creative idea in this film. Lazy lazy lazy. 99% of the lines could have been taken from any GENERIC SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER. The plot might as well have been conceived by an 11 year old schoolboy. Absolutely everything in this film was stale, shallow and safe. Even the action scenes were boring and generic. That's the perfect word to describe it - generic. Totally generic in every way, nothing memorable, nothing remotely interesting.

And anyone else think the terminators were completely wasted? They were not menacing at all, the only thing they did was push people really hard, kind of like a henchman in a Bond movie. And why did they make animal noises? That pesky 11 year old screenwriter!

All in all, Terminator Salvation is completely devoid of reasons to exist, except financial ones, of course. And even abusing it is no fun, because the film's not offensively stupid, like a Michael Bay movie, but is bland, lazy and spineless. It'll be like abusing a quadriplegic tortoise or something.

really struggle to understand how can anyone who has watched more than, say, 5 films in his or her life like this sorry excuse of a film?

I liked it very much and I reckon I've watched about 4,000 films in my life.

So there.

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Al Swearengen: "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back".

All the John Connor scenes in the film were the worst. He didn't seem to have any character development.

We've followed him since he was in the womb! Surely you already know him?

Anyway, I liked it a lot, as you can see from my unrelenting defence

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Al Swearengen: "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back".

Classic battle to gain the trust of his fellow man. Some people don't believe he's 'the one'. And with the time displacement equipment not yet invented in Salvation, that's perfectly understandable.

The main gripe is he's not very likeable....

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Al Swearengen: "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back".

I thought the first half of this film was simply a rip-roaringly entertaining chunk of quality sci-fi action. However it seems after the crappy fight in the helicopter with the wormy things the budget completely ran out and we were presented with a hugely disappointing representation of the Skynet capital, utterly uninspired fight scenes and a laughably easy entrance, exit and destruction of Skynet's main base of operation.

Seeing as my thread was shut down I'll ask it here (and apologies if this has already been hashed out) Can someone explain to me why Kyle Reese was Skynet's #1 target, and for that matter, how did Skynet even know about Reese or Connor at this point in the timeline?

I'm assuming that Skynet has everything on record, including the tapes from asylum and the police station. I'd say Reece was the main target as Connor is still at a low rank and still inconsequential as many saw him as a false prophet. So for the first film anyway, Kyle Reece was the deal-breaker

Al Swearengen: "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back".

Sam Worthington was great in this film and should have been John Connor full stop. If he had been John Connor and met Kyle the way Marcus was it would have made more sense and made for a less disjointed film, lots to like in the film but lots to improve, mostly Bale's stuff it has to be said.

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Counting the minutes until the over zealous mods lock this thread too.

I'm assuming that Skynet has everything on record, including the tapes from asylum and the police station. I'd say Reece was the main target as Connor is still at a low rank and still inconsequential as many saw him as a false prophet. So for the first film anyway, Kyle Reece was the deal-breaker

Reese is just a lure for Connor to come to Skynet. Otherwise Skynet would have just killed Reese on site. Skynet probably just knows Reese's name but not his exact role. It only knows he is important enough for John Connor to risk everything to rescue him.

In my eyes Kyle Reese isn't as important to the overall scenario as some might think. If Reese doesn't travel back to father John Connor, John might still be born (looking a bit different I guess). He simply has a different father. That's how things must have unfolded before Reese replaced the original father with himself.

The key persons are John and Sarah Connor. Eliminate either of these two and you win the war (probably).

Why Skynet sends only one Terminator up against John once he is in the trap is something I still don't get. Lazy scriptwriting I guess...

I watched this for the first time the other night and y'know what? I really enjoyed it.

Maybe ist because the expectation was low after T3 and the slaggings the movie has had but I found it and exciting sci fi yarn. True Bale was wooden and characters seemed to make soem odd decisions. I'm alos still hazy over how Skynet thinks it was controlling things (or why they would put a vunerable heart in a terminator just to simulate a heartbeat) but overall I sat down with beer and pizza and thought it a great blast.

I watched this for the first time the other night and y'know what? I really enjoyed it.

Maybe ist because the expectation was low after T3 and the slaggings the movie has had but I found it and exciting sci fi yarn. True Bale was wooden and characters seemed to make soem odd decisions. I'm alos still hazy over how Skynet thinks it was controlling things (or why they would put a vunerable heart in a terminator just to simulate a heartbeat) but overall I sat down with beer and pizza and thought it a great blast.

I'm assuming that Skynet has everything on record, including the tapes from asylum and the police station. I'd say Reece was the main target as Connor is still at a low rank and still inconsequential as many saw him as a false prophet. So for the first film anyway, Kyle Reece was the deal-breaker

Reese is just a lure for Connor to come to Skynet. Otherwise Skynet would have just killed Reese on site. Skynet probably just knows Reese's name but not his exact role. It only knows he is important enough for John Connor to risk everything to rescue him.

In my eyes Kyle Reese isn't as important to the overall scenario as some might think. If Reese doesn't travel back to father John Connor, John might still be born (looking a bit different I guess). He simply has a different father. That's how things must have unfolded before Reese replaced the original father with himself.

The key persons are John and Sarah Connor. Eliminate either of these two and you win the war (probably).

Why Skynet sends only one Terminator up against John once he is in the trap is something I still don't get. Lazy scriptwriting I guess...

Round and Round the plothole goes, where it stops......we'll be in an asylum by then!

Anyway nobody knows if Sarah told anyone who Kyle Reece was on record. In T2 it simply states his father is unknown so maybe he was captured simply as another civvy. Only Connor knew the full impact of what it meant if Kyle did die.

Fair point but then why does the probe have to identify Reese again when Marcus already did that?

Skynetís whole plan with Marcus and Reese depends too much on chance for my taste (like Reese surviving the attack at the gas station or the following chase). Itís just too illogical for an artificial intelligence to come up with.

Depending on what Skynet knows (maybe there's more time jiggery pokery to be revealed) killing Reese before he gets to skynet would stop his genes being passed on to john, so his survival is pure chance,and since john already exists in the timeline, killing reese wouldn't kill john so, so to semi quote the original film, they're just being thorough and running several plans at the same time to increase the chance of one of them working?

Al Swearengen: "Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back".

In my eyes Kyle Reese isn't as important to the overall scenario as some might think. If Reese doesn't travel back to father John Connor, John might still be born (looking a bit different I guess). He simply has a different father. That's how things must have unfolded before Reese replaced the original father with himself.

Reese didn't just knock Sarah up he gave her the inner strength that she passed on to their son. If Joe nobody was John's dad and Sarah never met Kyle John Connor not have been the saviour of humanity.

Kyle Reese is the most important character in the series. He triggers it all.

ORIGINAL: Tech_Noir Kyle Reese is the most important character in the series. He triggers it all.

You know, that bit made me think. Reese's journey not only creates John Connor but also Skynet.

So wouldn't it be dangerous for Skynet to try and prevent Reese from travelling back in time (if it kills Connor, he can't send Reese back)? If Reese doesn't travel back in time and helps Sarah defeat the T-101 in that factory Skynet may never be built (same as John Connor may never be born).

If Skynet were successful in killing Sarah before Johns birth or John and/or Reese before Reese is sent back it would terminate its own existence!

Maybe it will work out in some future films that the resistance thinks Conner is inadvertently the cause of everything and therefore they believe that stopping/killing Reese is the only thing that will stop Skynet. Maybe the Teminators that were sent back were sent by the resistance and The Terminators sent back to protect John were sent by Skynet. The series has become stupid enough, surely this idea isn't too off the wall...